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Liberal democracies have long practiced torture, but should they ever permit their officials to torture (&, if so, when?), how should their citizens think & talk about it, & how should the law treat it? Is it just another instance of "dirty hands" in politics? If it averts some terrible harm, can resorting to it be seen as choosing the "lesser evil"? What, then, is torture? The "torture memos" of the Bush administration's legal advisers are reviewed & their attempt to narrow its definition criticized, as is Judge Posner's attempt to confine it to physical coercion. Attempts to evade the questions above (on the grounds that torture is never effective in averting disaster) are rejected. It is suggested that torture, unlike other cases of dirty hands considered, cannot be rendered liberal-democratically accountable, in the sense that it will sometimes be legitimate &, when not, punished, because its practice cannot be publicly recognized without undermining both the democratic & liberal components of liberal democracy. This suggestion is supported by adducing a "Durkheimian argument" to the effect that our institutions & customs have been so penetrated by core elements of an egalitarian 'religion of individualism' that violating them threatens a kind of "moral disintegration". This, it is argued, requires liberal democracies to reject the very idea of a scale that can allow comparison of the benefits against the costs of torturing. The absolute prohibition serves to maintain inhibitions, though these are currently being eroded by the fear of terrorism.

Liberal democracies have long practised torture, but should they ever permit their officials to torture (and, if so, when?), how should their citizens think and talk about it, and how should the law treat it? Is it just another instance of 'dirty hands' in politics? If it averts some terrible harm, can resorting to it be seen as choosing the 'lesser evil'? What, then, is torture? The 'torture memos' of the Bush administration's legal advisers are reviewed and their attempt to narrow its definition criticized, as is Judge Posner's attempt to confine it to physical coercion. Attempts to evade the questions above (on the grounds that torture is never effective in averting disaster) are rejected. It is suggested that torture, unlike other cases of dirty hands considered, cannot be rendered liberal-democratically accountable, in the sense that it will sometimes be legitimate and, when not, punished, because its practice cannot be publicly recognized without undermining both the democratic and liberal components of liberal democracy. This suggestion is supported by adducing a 'Durkheimian argument' to the effect that our institutions and customs have been so penetrated by core elements of an egalitarian 'religion of individualism' that violating them threatens a kind of 'moral disintegration'. This, it is argued, requires liberal democracies to reject the very idea of a scale that can allow comparison of the benefits against the costs of torturing. The absolute prohibition serves to maintain inhibitions, though these are currently being eroded by the fear of terrorism.

In this exciting account of the development and sustainability of the liberal democratic state, Ajume H. Wingo argues that it is non-rational factors that more often than not provide the real source of motivation. Wingo demonstrates that these 'veils' can play an essential role in a thriving liberal democratic state

Liberal Education and Democratic Citizenship carefully describes the crises confronting American democracy, identifying their philosophical, cultural, and institutional origins to show how liberal education, properly understood, can respond to these crises effectively.

Liberal theory seeks agreement on political principles in spite of the moral, religious and philosophical diversity of contemporary societies. This text develops principles from research on liberal citizen's attitudes.

Although not its sole dimension, the idea of equality of rights & resources is one of the basic tenets of liberalism. Liberal equality introduces a reformist thrift in government by determining that government action should aim to create opportunities for the realization of the civil condition. This is a legal & political condition allowing citizens to enjoy a statute of equal rights. Hence, the liberal idea of reformism proceeds by removing the obstacles to the realization of the civil condition & by providing the legal & the material resources for the exercise of citizenship rights. This interpretation is not self-evident, especially in times when neoliberalism seems to represent the entire liberal tradition. It is argued that liberal reformism makes a vital foundation for democracy. Even more, the survival of democracy at present depends on its rooting in liberalism. 84 References. Adapted from the source document.

This article explores three dimensions of ANC democracy: the movement's entrenchment of liberal representative democracy, its pursuit of national democratic revolution, and its internal organisational democracy. It identifies tensions over the meaning and significance of democracy and the relations between internal democratic processes and external democratic goals. The movement has defended constitutionalism but failed to entrench democratic attitudes or to prepare for a multi-party system; it has promoted social transformation but failed to buttress the minimal gains of liberal democracy; and it has prevented debilitating conflict over policy and candidate selection but grown increasingly intolerant of internal debate and competition. The article finds no inexorable authoritarian logic at work. However, it identifies anti-democratic tendencies that require intentional political amelioration if they are not to become mutually reinforcing.

__Abstract__ The increasingly fashionable concept and framing of post-secularism aims to construct simplistic dichotomies and clear-cut ruptures between pre-secular, secular and post-secular ages or epochs, in order to paint generalised and homogenised pictures of societies and their inevitable evolution. This conceptual strategy drastically reduces, or even neglects, historical contingency and societal complexity. Against the background of a brief reflection on thepossibilities and limits of a transcultural and transhistorical concept of religion, this article engages in a critical discussion of 'Secularisation and the Conditions of Post-Secularism' from a sociological point of view and critically reflects on some of the 'normative issues of how citizens' of a 'post-secular society should understand themselves'. In this regard, the main assertion is that we should opt to drop both secularism and post-secularism from our constitutional and legal language, and replace it with priority for liberal democracy or, more specifically, with liberal-democratic constitutionalism.